"Welcome to King Arthur's Pizza!" the announcer said as he stood on the secondary stage of the showplace. Hundreds of young children cheered with excitement. "I won't keep you waiting, because I know who you all want to see. But first, a song from William the Wolf." and the man walked off the stage.
The stage lit up and the wolf animatronic whirred into action. Over his normal gray fur he wore a suit of armor. In his right hand he held a sword. He sang a little ditty about going to slay this horrible beast as he slowly moved along the stage.
His song ended when he reached the cave. He turned to face the children, putting a finger to his lips and making a shushing sound.
"We don't want to wake the beast, be very quiet." he told the children. But of course, they weren't going to have any of that. The crowd erupted into cheers for the beast to wake up and come out of his cave.
And he did, he crawled out of the cave and let out with his famous catchphrase. "Who dare disturb my slumber?!"
The knight stumbled backward as the Fire Drake came out of his cave. The Drake turned his head to look at the frightened knight. "You did? Well then, you shall know the rage of Dave!" he roared at William and let out with a stream of "fire". Which was only smoke that came out of a tube in his throat lit by red and orange lights. It looked real enough.
The knight let out with a comical scream and ran off. Dave laughed at his triumph and the whole crowd of children chimed in. He turned to face the crowd.
"Thank you for alerting me to the presence of that evil knight. But it is time I return to my slumber." he told the children and went back into his cave. The place erupted into thunderous applause and cheers. The announcer returned to the stage and said a few closing words. His last one being the most important.
"The next show will be in about an hour! See you then." and one-by-one everybody left the tables. Leaving a trail of mess from the children. The workers quickly hurried in to clean up the mess before the next show.
This was where Dave would have his most fun. When he wasn't happily performing for children, he scared the cleanup crew. Whenever somebody stood on the stage or even just beside it, he let out with his catchphrase loudly. They always jumped and screamed, some even yelled at him to not do that. Which, of course, encouraged him even more.
He also followed them with his yellow eyes, creeping them out even more. Sometimes he even breathed fire on them, which sadly had no affect. That was when he learned it wasn't real fire.
He was young back then. Young, naive and playful. He didn't mean any harm with his scares, he only did it for play. But these employees didn't think so. Years passed and Dave continued this. But the employees couldn't take it anymore. One had the guts to actually talk to the owner right in front of Dave.
"I cannot work here with that demonic animatronic always scaring me!" the janitor yelled.
"I know, I know, the repairmen have been trying to fix this obvious malfunction. Just have a little more patience." the owner replied.
"Patience?! How can I be patient when I have that thing always watching me!" he pointed his finger to Dave, "I will quit if you don't get rid of him."
"But the children love him!"
"They're children, they'll love anything. They'd probably forget about him after a week anyway."
The owner looked sad as he looked up at Dave. He looked back at the janitor, "Let's finish up this conversation in my office." he said and the two walked away.
Dave snarled when the man left the room. How dare he say those bad things about me. I'll really scare him the next time he comes over. He thought. He sighed and shut his eyes, going into the standby mode he always went to at nighttime.
The next morning the restaurant opened an hour earlier than it usually did. This alerted Dave as he snapped out of his standby. He smiled when he saw some men come in, they resembled the repairmen that often brought him in the backroom to fix him when something broke.
He was feeling a little broken and dirty, guess it was time for a cleanup, even though he swore he already had one a month ago. Two of the men climbed up on the stage and pulled the Fire Drake out of his cave. When he was off the stage, he couldn't do anything. He was basically deactivated. He could do nothing as they dragged him onto the roller and took him out of the restaurant.
This was where Dave begun to panic. They never took him outside before. They hauled him onto the back of a truck and drove away. NO! No! He mentally screamed. But he could do nothing as the restaurant faded from view. All throughout the drive he wondered where they were taking him. What were they going to do with him?
His question soon got answered when they took him to the county dump. He knew this because of the sign he glimpsed as they carried him in on the roller. They threw him on a pile of trash and walked away. Leaving him alone.
He cried internally as he slowly begun to accept his fate. He was going to die here. He wouldn't entertain children ever again. To pour salt into his wound the same employee who spoke to the owner visited him later in the day.
He laughed with triumph as he looked at Dave. "Got what you deserved, you piece of trash." he said and walked away.
This made Dave sad and angry at the same time, he wanted to chase the man down and kill him. Or burst into tears. But he could do nothing, he was helpless.
YOU ARE READING
Artificial Anguish
Fanfiction"Evil. Malfunctioning. Haunted. Junk. That's what they called me. The children loved me, but that didn't matter to them, did it? I only wanted to scare them for play, but they didn't care to think that. I was junk to them, so they left me where all...
